A dominant second half display saw Aycliffe take the points from second placed Guisborough Town. The win, Aycliffe’s fourth in a row, takes them up to third place in Ebac Northern League Division One. The Priorymen came to Moore Lane on an eight game unbeaten run. However, goals from Matty Moffat & John Campbell put an end to the run.
The first half saw chances at both ends but neither side could convert those chances into goals. Aycliffe keeper James Winter was called into a_ction after half an hour pulling off a good save, diving to his right, from a shot by Peter Bulmer. Within five minutes it was Guisborough keeper Nick Liversedge performing the heroics with two saves within a minute, first from Moffat, then from Campbell.
As the halftime whistle approached Guisborough had another chance but Curtis Round’s shot was fired straight at Winter who saved comfortably.
Aycliffe came out of the blocks fastest in the second half & opened the scoring on 51 minutes. Moffat latched on to a through ball down the left. Taking it in his stride he slid the ball across the goal out of Liversedge’s reach & into the net.
Five minutes later Campbell made it 2-0. Winning the ball in midfield he ran on & fired past the keeper. Guisborough came close to pulling a goal back just after the hour when Danny Earl found himself through on goal. However, the former Aycliffe striker’s shot went straight to Winter.
Aycliffe’s forwards continued to cause problems but without further reward with the best chance falling to Moffat in the last minute. Once again the visitors’ keeper came to the rescue.
This was an excellent result for Peter Dixon’s side & the 3 points were well deserved. Aycliffe now play two more home games, Seaham Red Star on Tuesday 23rd & Dunston on Saturday 27th.
Those games will be followed by our Durham Challenge Cup Semi-Final at South Shields on Tuesday 1 March. It will be over 40 years since we got this far in the county’s premier cup competition. Hopefully many Newtonians will make the trip to cheer the team on.
